Sweet Child of Mine
by elisabethjj
Summary: An untouched tumbler of bourbon, a heart that hasn't beat in a thousand years and nothing to do but wait. Caroline is fighting, Klaus is frozen like stone- the discontented wail of a newborn child pierces the grey morning and there's no rulebook for this kind of thing. Klaroline; set post season 4.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Well. This is weird. I... think I accidentally wrote baby-fic. Huh.

Warnings: Um, I killed someone in this. Plus it's kinda gross. And a bit twisted. I'm not even sure if I like it. I'm not even sure what it is.

:::

_Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own TVD. The characters are probably quite glad about that._

* * *

The discontented wail of a newborn infant, wrenched from the comfort of the womb, pierces the early morning.

Klaus flinches, heart thudding like it hasn't in centuries. Across the room, Elijah sits forward and adjusts his shirt cuffs minutely. Only those very close to him would recognise he is a powder keg of excited, nervous energy.

'Niklaus,' Elijah breathes, turning bright eyes on his brother. Klaus cannot meet his gaze. He remains, as he has remained for the past eighteen and a half torturous hours, a silent stone figure in the old-fashioned armchair. An untouched tumbler of bourbon rests on the sideboard, inches from his hand. 'Niklaus,' Elijah urges him again. 'Your child is here.'

Klaus knows that, of course. He's listened to the whole wretched ordeal unravelling throughout the night. Banned from the birthing chambers on the first floor of the house; unwanted and helpless to do anything, for once in his long life. He's heard the witches chanting, his sister barking out orders, the other girls soothing and muttering and storytelling when it got too bad.

It wasn't an easy birth, from the sounds of it. More than once it crossed his mind that she might die. When she started cursing and groaning his fists had clenched at his sides. When the noise had stopped a few hours ago and her voice trailed off into a subdued feverish mutter, his face had frozen into the hollow mask that now confronted Elijah in the pale morning light.

'Nik,' Rebekah's voice startles him into looking up. She's grubby in her jeans and vaguely blood smeared sweater but she's glowing with happiness, looking like the young girl he hasn't seen in many a decade. Her arms hold a bundle of white blankets, encasing the newborn baby. He can smell his child—it's weird and unexpected—he can _smell_ the baby and he recognises the scent of what is his. Family. Blood. Belonging. 'You have a son,' his sister tells him.

Klaus has killed hundreds of people. Some of them were children. Babies, even. He has a thousand years of blood on his hands. People he's tormented, people he's hurt and chased and tortured. He has killed people in the last week and yesterday he drained a seventeen year old girl to within an inch of her life, loving the taste of her fear and the rattle of her breath as she slipped towards oblivion.

'You have a son,' Rebekah says, and she's smiling, and there's blood on her t-shirt.

'Is she-' Klaus starts.

'Caroline's fine,' Rebekah says, her attention still fixed on the tiny boy wriggling in her arms. 'The old crones started removing the spell as soon as this little one was born. Caroline's healing now.'

Klaus breathes out relief and anger and fear that he doesn't know what to do with. Rebekah steps forward and Klaus steps back, but his sister is moving too quickly and his arms shoot out automatically to take the swaddled infant before he knows he's been tricked. Rebekah smiles triumphantly and goes to stand next to Elijah, hugging her eldest brother in their shared joy.

The baby is tiny and wrinkled. His eyes when they blink up at Klaus are pure blue. Klaus's son weighs nothing in his arms and makes a soft, happy sounding squeal as the Original Hybrid peers down at the tiny boy. Klaus has no idea what to do with this turn of events. He glances at his siblings in a kind of panic, but they are smiling indulgently and offer absolutely no help, and when he looks back at the small speck of a person he is holding the child is fast asleep.

'Rebekah,' a soft voice comes from the doorway. Elena looks exhausted, overwhelmed and a bit pissed off. Join the club. He allows his gaze to drift over the girl who has worked tirelessly helping Caroline this past night. He wants to thank her. He's not sure how.

She's staring oddly at him and there's something in her eyes he can't decipher. Never could. Part of why he's always disliked this doppelganger so much is how little he understands her. Listening to her with Caroline during the long hours of her labour, Klaus thinks he perhaps sees a little more of what Caroline, the Salvatore's, hell even Elijah seem to value in this girl.

'I need some more towels,' Elena is saying to his sister now, and Klaus frowns as he listens for Caroline and her attendants upstairs.

'I should—' Klaus mutters, handing the baby back to Rebekah and heading towards the great central hallway housing the staircase that will lead him to Caroline.

'Klaus, no!' Elena says, sticking a hand out towards him, but pulling it back before she makes contact, as if his touch might burn her. It might. He turns an expectant, annoyed glare on her. 'Caroline's still...um...' Elena breaks off and her cheeks flush pink. Klaus rallies his brain cells and thinks back to what he knows of the birthing process, feeling somewhat of an idiot when Elena's meaning hits him. She's clutching freshly laundered towels in her arms now. He wonders who washed them over the course of the night. Possibly, Elijah, he guesses.

'It'll be quick now,' Elena says, awkwardly. 'She's already started vampire healing again, so it's just going through the motions.'

Klaus smirks, nods tiredly and holds his palms up in the universal sign of I-am-backing-off. Elena's gone from the room at vampire speed before he even settles back down in his seat.

The baby appears to be sleeping now, content in Rebekah's arms with Elijah looking fondly on.

'What are you going to name him?' his brother asks.

:::

Caroline stares at the ceiling, willing her mind to quieten. Everything is agony, and the physical pain is barely the beginning of it. She knows her body is healing now. She can feel the skin and muscle knitting back together, strength seeping back into the body that had become exhausted over her extended childbirth.

Childbirth, indeed. Caroline scoffs under her breath, fighting back angry tears that sting her eyes. She feels empty. It should be a relief, and maybe it is. Maybe she can go home and pretend this nightmare never happened.

She thought she would die, last night. She thought she would die for this tiny person that had lived inside her; this precious, awful thing she hadn't asked for. She thinks, maybe, that if Elena hadn't been there at each dark moment to pull her back to herself, then she might have died. But perhaps that is just melodramatic.

The bedroom is quiet now, but there's too much going on inside her head to find any peace. Rebekah has finally left, thank God, to be with her brothers downstairs. She'd whisked the baby away at its first cry, when Caroline had feebly pushed the shorter midwife's arms away as she'd tried to lay the baby to her breast.

'It's not my child,' Caroline had whispered, and turned her head away. The taller midwife had gasped and Elena had squeezed Caroline's hand. The three Deveraux witches had ignored her as they prepared candles and nasty smelling herbs for their incantations. Rebekah had glanced awkwardly at the blonde girl who had just finished pushing her nephew into the world, and then swept out of the room as soon as the baby had been swaddled.

Now, the midwives are cleaning up the last of the afterbirth mess. The witches are finished with their strange rituals and the crone amongst them, the olive skinned, black-haired hippie grandmother type who had started all this in the first place, moves gracefully to Caroline's bedside as the midwife disappears out of the door.

'I am sorry for your suffering, child,' she says, but Caroline rolls her eyes and laughs, a harsh, painful and mirthless sound.

'Don't,' she bites out, feeling strength flowing back into her body and bonding with the cold, sad, anger she has been holding onto throughout the night. 'You did this to me for your own, twisted purposes and you didn't care that it hurt me as long as your coven got what it wanted. You're no better than him. Evil.'

The witch flinches as though physically struck, but stands her ground.

'You may not believe me,' she says, 'but I wish there had been another way. The seer is never wrong on such matters. Without you, the child would have died and—'

Caroline tries to rally herself to face the hag down, but is stopped in her tracks by Elena's cold, angry voice.

'Get out,' Elena says, moving to Caroline's side and setting a stack of clean towels on the dresser. She turns and stares down the crone and the two younger Deveraux cousins, letting her eyes turn black and veiny, and her fangs elongate into a vicious snarl. 'You've put Caroline through enough. You've done what you came to do so get the hell out of this house, right the fuck now.'

Caroline sinks into the bed, and lets Elena runs the unwanted women out of her room. She hears Rebekah finish the job downstairs, ushering the three New Orleans witches out of the house with acid dripping from her ultra polite words. With her concentration focused on downstairs, she inadvertently picks up the tiny snuffle of a sigh from the sleeping baby, and a sharp pain stabs in her gut. Easing onto her rapidly healing side, Caroline sobs angry tears into the bed sheet and doesn't even protest when Elena sinks onto the bed with her, wrapping her friend up in her arms and murmuring soothing noises into her sweat-damp blonde hair.

'Drink some blood,' Elena says, when Caroline has quietened. A blood bag with a bright yellow straw jabbed into it is pressed into Caroline's hands and she loses herself for a few minutes in the taste and the smell and the rush of life force that is so intoxicating. For the first time in months, she feels like a vampire again.

'What is he?' she asks Elena suddenly.

'Beautiful,' Elena replies instinctively, and then bites her lip. 'Sorry.' She looks hesitantly at Caroline. 'I don't know. He just looks like a baby. He has some hair, I think. Blue eyes.'

Caroline smiles sadly.

'I hate him,' she says, but Elena knows she doesn't mean the child.

:::

**Six months ago**

This wasn't how she'd expected the weekend to go.

When Stefan had said, 'Let's visit New Orleans,' Caroline had envisioned sightseeing, jambalaya, lots of pretending not to notice Stefan and Rebekah sneaking off together for extended periods of time and, possible, some semi awkward and sweepingly romantic conversations with the man who had proclaimed himself to be her last love.

Not this: a tense, angry face-off on the front porch between a coven of witches, the Original siblings and an apparently pregnant she-wolf stuck in the middle of the tug-o-war.

'Wait, the kid is Klaus's?' Stefan says, doubtfully, as Rebekah hushes him and Klaus glares.

'How dare you?' he practically spits at Hayley, who cowers back under the force of his anger. 'I told you what would happen if you flaunted this situation to manipulate me.'

Caroline feels sick.

Hayley is pregnant with Klaus's baby. Klaus can make babies.

Klaus has slept with Hayley.

'What..?' Caroline gasps, conflicting emotions glazing into one mindless jumble inside her.

'Caroline,' Klaus turns worriedly to her. 'Please just let me explain, love. After I've dealt with these unwelcome guests.' His gaze snaps back to Hayley and Caroline follows his eyeline. An odd, twisting sensation stirs inside as she watches Hayley clasp her arms protectively over the protruding curve of her stomach, where she has begun to swell with Klaus's child.

'I'm warning you, Hybrid,' the raven-haired crone of the coven says, stepping forward on tired limbs with fire blazing in her eyes. 'We have done what is necessary to ensure the protection of this child. The special birth is foretold and the babe will come safely into the world, whether you like it or not!'

'I do not enjoy your pathetic threats,' Klaus sneers. Caroline can tell that fury is building in him from the way his voice gets more controlled and detached.

'Be reasonable, Klaus.' Hayley manages to achieve sounding scared and pissed off at the same time. 'You can't expect to keep me a dirty little secret forever. I'm carrying your child!'

'Sweetheart,' Klaus says, coldly, 'you very much underestimate the hold that has over me. In fact, right now, it's mostly an inconvenience.'

That's when it happens, you see. All hell breaks loose.

Klaus lunges for Hayley; Elijah's eyebrows shoot up as he lunges for Klaus; the witches start screeching in indignation; and Rebekah bitch slaps the one nearest to her, seemingly just for the hell of it. Klaus pulls himself up short, inches from where Hayley's shaking in her cheap boots.

Stefan quirks a mildly alarmed glance at Caroline and opens his mouth to say something, but it never comes out. Or maybe it does, but Caroline's too busy dealing with the wrenching agony that's twisting in her stomach and causing blood to thunder deafeningly in her ears.

Across the porch, Hayley's eyes have rolled back in her head and her body has flexed upwards in an alarming contortion.

She drops like a stone, dead weight on the porch decking.

Caroline hits the ground a second later and rolls to her side, clutching her stomach and howling as her insides split apart and rearrange themselves. For a moment, she's reminded of when she watched the Hybrid's forcing their change over and over again, trying to break the sire bond all those months ago. She can see Hayley's wide eyed, lifeless gaze through the muddle of feet and legs between them.

She vomits, blood and god knows what spewing onto the ground and spraying someone's jean clad leg in the process. Nausea and dizziness grip her body. Weakness, like her human self.

'Caroline!' Stefan, or Klaus, or both of them are down beside her in the filth, their horrified faces swimming in front of her.

The crone is whispering, and the words swirl loudly in Caroline's ears, but she can't decipher them. 'What,' Caroline tries to say, and the black-haired old woman shakes her head sadly.

Then, as suddenly as it started, it all stops. The world right's itself.

'What did you do to her?' Klaus is up again and roaring in the crone's face.

'What we must,' hisses the witch. 'I warned you Hybrid, the spell was already cast. The spirits protect the baby. Now, they have acted to make sure you will do the child no harm as it prepares to enter this world.'

There's noise, and Caroline shuts her eyes against the commotion as she hears the witches leave. Klaus is smashing decking furniture, impotent with rage against the witches he cannot harm. Eliljah cannot calm him down.

'Hey,' Stefan says, softly, leaning over Caroline. 'I'm going to pull you up, ok?'

Caroline nods and lets Stefan pull her to her feet. His hands come up to the side of her face, scanning her for injuries. Finding something of her normal spark returning to Caroline's eyes, he quickly pulls his friend into a hug.

They both freeze.

'Uh, Klaus,' Stefan says.

'What?' Klaus is by their side in a flash, moody and anxious after Caroline's temporary incapacitation.

Slowly, without his eyes leaving Caroline's, Stefan eases back from the blonde girl.

Caroline and Klaus both follow Stefan's eyes down to Caroline's waist.

The gentle bump curves conspicuously out from the fitted blouse she dressed in that morning. Her hand automatically moves to cradle the shape and, in an awful moment of revelation, she can feel the child growing within her.

'What the hell?' she gasps. Her horrified gaze snaps up to Klaus's own gobsmacked expression.

'Bloody hell,' Rebekah says, 'that's weird.'

* * *

**To be continued...? If you think this is utter tripe, please be gentle with me. xxx**


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors Note**: Wow, I'm so lucky to have had such supportive feedback from so many readers! You have absolutely convinced me to go ahead and keep writing this story. I'm not too sure where it's going, but I've got a hazy kind of outline and I just kind of like the idea. I know it's a bit weird, as several of you have said- haha! I hope you enjoy this update and keep interested in the story.

I do acknowledge that the subject matter of motherhood, surrogacy, adoptive or step-parenthood and all that is fraught with emotion and can I just reiterate that this is _fiction_- I am just trying to imagine what Caroline might be going through with this and am not trying to make any statements about what makes a 'real' parent or anything like that. If you don't like it, please feel free to not read any further!

_Disclaimer: TVD and The Originals are both owned by people who are not me. _

* * *

Caroline has, encouraged by Elena, drained three blood bags by the time Klaus makes it to the bedroom door.

After months of being stuck out of phase, somewhere half way between human and vampire, Caroline's blood lust is rising and she's glad for it. The Spirits of the witches who protected Klaus's spawn had altered her body so that she was human enough to nourish and grow a child in her womb, but the side effects had not been a barrel of laughs for the blonde girl. The blood that her hybridised body still demanded had started to taste increasingly unpleasant over the past weeks, not to mention her vampire abilities seemed to come and go as frequently as her mood swings.

Of course, for Caroline to actually give birth to the child, the witches had cast a spell to remove her healing powers temporarily. It was, apparently, the only way to stop her body recovering itself too quickly to allow the birthing process to occur. Caroline was pretty sure the Spirits who had played havoc on her physiology for the length of the pregnancy would have this covered, but neither the coven nor the Originals were risking the baby at this late stage on an uncertainty. So Caroline had ended up with Agnes—the black haired, bead wearing witch crone—her great-niece Sophie and her granddaughter Ellen chanting round a mystical triangle while she pushed Hayley's child out of her hijacked body.

They are all gone now though, and Caroline's weakness has gone with them. She can feel the muscles in her abdomen, the bruising inside and the tearing between her legs all healing up. Everything is tightening, smoothing, restoring now. In another few minutes, Caroline thinks, nobody would be able to tell she has carried and birthed a child. There will be nothing left at all.

A half-sob escapes her, and she doesn't really know why.

'Caroline,' Klaus says, from the doorway. He looks almost happy, and also kind of uncertain. She's fairly sure she's never seen him look either of those things before.

She passes the empty blood bag back to Elena and concentrates on withdrawing her fangs. Her gaze flickers down to the sweet-smelling tiny scrap of life currently sleeping in Klaus's arms and suddenly her stomach feels like lead.

'If you want to talk,' she says, coldly, 'then ask Elena to take the baby downstairs. I don't want it in here.' Hurt flashes in Klaus's deep blue eyes. He looks to Elena and she sighs, nods and moves to take the child from Klaus. She gives Caroline a small smile before leaving the room.

So then it's just the two of them, and Klaus is making his way slowly to Caroline's bedside, all calm and non-threatening, like she's a wounded animal liable to lash out any second. She supposes that's how he sees her.

'How are you feeling, love?' he asks gently.

Caroline snorts.

'Great,' she says, sarcastically. She waves her hand at the pile of empty blood bags. 'Your witches removed the spell. I'm sure you heard.' She glares at him defiantly. 'I'm nearly good as new already.'

Klaus nods, glances down at his hands where they are joined in front of him. He'd wanted to be there by her side tonight, she knew, but thankfully he'd adhered to her outright ban on him coming anywhere near the room while she gave birth. Having Rebekah there was the compromise Caroline had unwillingly made.

'I want to thank you, Caroline. I know... It could hear it wasn't easy tonight. I'm aware the past few months haven't exactly been happy ones for you.' He looks up, and his eyes are brightly burning as they meet Caroline's cool gaze. 'What you've done though, sweetheart, I could never thank you enough for this chance you've given me. He's... He's amazing.'

'Congratulations,' Caroline says, tightly. She can feel the walls of ice stacking up around her heart, protecting her from all this and she clings to that protection. She cannot afford to let him in and this—Klaus, like this, all passion and raw emotion—is dangerous territory.

Klaus blinks. His hands run through his hair, ruffling the dirty blond locks into disarray.

'Rebekah says you haven't held him,' he questions, cautiously.

'No,' Caroline replies. 'Why should I? He's not mine to hold.' Klaus sighs, heavily and reaches out to take Caroline's hand, where it's resting on the bedcovers. She quickly yanks it out of his reach. Thank goodness her vampire reactions have returned now. Caroline turns her face away from Klaus.

'Can I leave now?' she asks. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees Klaus stiffen momentarily.

'What?' he asks, hoarsely.

'The witches' barrier spell that has kept me trapped in New Orleans for six months,' Caroline states, blankly. 'Is it down now?' She clenches her fists in her lap and glares at him. 'Your brood mare's done her job. Can I leave now?'

Klaus looks appalled. It's a funny look on a person who's tortured men to death and made blood sacrifices of teenagers to further his own powers.

'Where will you go?'

'I don't know,' she shrugs. 'Anywhere away from here. Maybe Italy?'

'I have a villa—' he offers, but she cuts his words short with an incredulous laugh.

'No,' she says, bitterly. 'I think I've spent enough time in your houses.'

Klaus rolls his eyes, helplessly.

'Then let me book you a hotel suite, wherever you like. With your friends, if you prefer. Have some time to unwind.'

Caroline sighs and shakes her head.

'Klaus,' she says, quietly. 'Don't you get it? I don't want you to do anything. I just want to leave.' She doesn't have to look to know the depth of emotion swirling in the Hybrid's eyes. Klaus never took rejection well.

'But, the boy—' he growls. If he lets her go gallivanting around the globe, how will he bring her back again? How will he make sure his son gets to know the only mother he has left?

'_Your_ boy,' Caroline reminds him. 'Yours and Hayley's.'

'Hayley is dead,' Klaus says, exasperatedly.

'Not my fault!' Caroline replies, eyes flashing annoyance. 'You're the one who knocked the wolf girl up. You're the one who couldn't keep his temper well enough for the Spirits to believe you wouldn't rip her and your unborn child to shreds!'

'How many times do I have to apologise for unwittingly placing you in this position?' Klaus objects. 'It's not like I knew any of this would happen, _could _happen even. You think I don't see the sacrifices you've made this year, that I don't realise all you've done for this family? I never meant for you to be involved with any of this.'

'Exactly,' Caroline states, hollowly. Something is breaking inside her at the truth of his words. 'I'm not the girl you slept with. I'm not the girl you got pregnant and, you know what, you can't just decide to make me a second choice backup mother to that kid just because your tantrums got his real mother killed.'

Klaus clenches his jaw and Caroline knows she has to nip this in the bud before it escalates into the same argument they've had a dozen times since she realised she was carrying Klaus's child. It doesn't matter now. She's free, she thinks. She hopes.

'Klaus,' she sighs, sinking back against the oversized pillows is she propped up against. 'It's been a long night. I just pushed a child out of my vagina and I'd kind of like to get some rest. Can we talk about this later?'

She watches as Klaus rubs his hand over the scruff on his face, and nods as patiently as he can.

'Of course, love,' he says. 'You should rest. I'm glad you're healing quickly.' He stands, glancing at her once more with those bottomless, emotion filled eyes that Caroline has never learned how to deal with. 'Will you see him when you've rested?'

Caroline steels herself not to flinch.

'Maybe,' she says. She waits until the sound of Klaus's retreat has faded before pulling back the bedcovers and stripping out of her sleep shirt. By the time Elena makes it back up to the room, Caroline is dressed and busy pulling on her boots.

'What are you doing?' Elena asks, confused.

'I can't stay here,' Caroline says, keeping her voice low and, hopefully, unheard by the Originals downstairs. 'I just can't. Not one minute longer.' She looks up at her friend, who has been the greatest comfort she could have asked for these past months, let alone the most recent awful hours. She knows that she owes Elena her sanity and, probably, a lot more than that. It's a debt that Caroline fully intends to repay, as long as they are both living. 'Are you coming with me?'

'Of course,' Elena says, simply. She grabs her bag from under the dresser and shoves a few things into it, then glances at Caroline. 'Aren't you bringing anything?'

'There's nothing here I need,' Caroline says.

Elena nods, understanding as ever.

'You want to take the front door, then, or...' she trails off and motions to the large sash window by Caroline's bed. It's a full storey drop to the garden below, but Caroline seems pretty much back to her usual vampire strength and, let's face it, they've both had enough of the Original family for now. Possibly forever.

Caroline smirks.

The girls are half way across the city before Elijah comments on the lack of noise from the upper floor. Klaus stares silently at the curtains rustling minutely in the muggy air that flows through the open window, standing in the room that still smells of the woman he loves.

He kills that night, but Caroline is still gone.

:::

**Six months ago**

'You killed her,' Caroline snarls. 'An innocent girl. This baby's mom!'

Well, maybe innocent is a bit of a stretch, but then who the hell is innocent these days? Hayley had manipulated Klaus into slaughtering twelve hybrids—her so called friends—to find her family. Then again, Caroline killed twelve witches to save Bonnie. She isn't in Hayley's fan club, and she could definitely have lived a cheerful eternity without knowing Klaus and the she-wolf had got hot and sweaty together, but still. Hayley didn't deserve the fate these witches had doled out to her.

Sophie Deveraux looks guilty, but determined, as Caroline faces her down across the courtyard table.

They're in some kind of witchy hangout in the French quarter. A cobbled square surrounded by the rear entrances to buildings that the witches live or work in. Sophie's restaurant is one of them; the smell of spiced stew wafting out from the open kitchen door and mixing with the incenses in the courtyard. Candles and flowers decorate the square, scattered around the seating areas and the large open fire pit that could have been for cooking or magical purposes.

There are at least half a dozen of Sophie's coven sisters in the yard, but they didn't look too concerned as Caroline stormed in to confront them. She guesses they aren't going to get their beads in a bunch over a three month pregnant lady getting narky with them.

'We didn't know Hayley would die,' Sophie argues, teeth clicking in a way that irritates Caroline. Actually, everything about this girl irritates her—the wide eyes, the smoky voice... heck, even the defiant set of her jaw sets Caroline's fangs on edge.

'Well that's the problem when you mess with forces beyond your understanding, sweetie,' Caroline glares at the dark-haired girl. 'Trust me on this, I have a little experience with magical FUBARs. Which is, by the way, the situation we're in now. So you better get your witchy friends together and fix this right the hell now.'

'We can't,' Sophie says. 'The spell is cast and cannot be undone. The Spirits guard the child now. They will do whatever is necessary to ensure the child is safe and protected until Klaus is ready to fulfil that role.'

'Newsflash, brainiac,' Caroline says, incredulously. 'Klaus wants nothing to do with this baby. He'd as soon as kill it as lift a finger to protect it.'

'That's why the Spirits have acted,' Sophie explains, her jaw jutting again. Caroline fights back the urge to slap her across her pretty face. She figures Sophie will cross paths again with Rebekah soon enough anyway, and the Original sister is much freer with her gratuitous violence. 'We could not have known how the Spirits would act to protect the child, only that they would do so. The saw that Klaus would have killed Hayley and the unborn baby with her, so they made a decision. Hayley is an unfortunate sacrifice made for the greater good.'

Caroline scoffs at the brunette's idealism.

'But why me?' she asks. 'Why do the Spirits want to set me up as Klaus's next victim? If he wants this child dead then how do the mighty witch Spirits think they are going to protect us both from Klaus?'

'Don't you see, child?' The voice comes from behind Caroline, and she whirls to see Sophie's great-aunt, the crone of the New Orleans coven, standing right there. Her eyes are bright in the candle light and there's a constant aura of magic about this woman that makes her seem almost otherworldly. Caroline doesn't like her much, either.

'You _are _the protection,' the crone continues. 'You have the Hybrid's heart. Klaus loves you. He will protect you from any enemy; kill for you, fight for you. As long as that baby grows within your womb Klaus will keep you both from any harm.'

'Oookay,' Caroline blinks, overwhelmed by the idiocy of that statement. 'So, ignoring the fact that you are crazier than I thought if you actually believe that,' (the memory of a metal pole skewering her torso and Klaus's fangs slicing into her neck runs briefly through her mind) 'what the fuck gives you the right to mess with people in this way?' She shakes her head in disbelief. 'Hayley is _dead_ because of you. Her child... Her and Klaus's _baby_ is growing inside by _body_ right now! This is beyond screwed up!'

The crone smiles, sadly, and reaches a placating hand out towards Caroline.

'I am truly sorry for the distress this causes you, young one,' she says. 'The Spirits make their decisions based on things that you and I have no knowledge of. They see things that we cannot comprehend. The Seer of this coven foretold that the Sprits protection would be required to see this special chid safely into the world and so here we are, safe in their hands, but at the mercy of forces that move in mysterious ways. We must trust that every action is for the greater good, Caroline.'

Caroline's hand moves to the bump she hasn't got used to feeling yet.

'But...' she whispers, burdened with the knowledge that the witches will not help her. This is going to happen. She is going to have Klaus's baby. 'It's not fair,' she says. It isn't fair. Her heart is aching because Klaus and Hayley slept together; made a baby together. She knows she was with Tyler and she turned Klaus down at every turn, but it hurts and she can't bring herself to examine why it hurts so damn much. She can barely get her head around that and now Hayley's dead and Caroline is suddenly three months pregnant and there is a heartbeat inside her womb that she can hear. A tiny life depending on her for survival. Klaus's baby.

It's awful and it's cruel because, of all the good things being a vampire has brought into Caroline's world, the one thing she's mourned is her chance to be a mother. Now she can feel a child growing inside her and it's _his_ child, and... and it's not hers. Caroline isn't going to be a mother—she's an incubator for a baby that the man she (doesn't _love_) feels all kinds of confusing things for made with a dead werewolf who she can't find it in herself to like.

'You'll understand soon enough, Caroline,' Agnes says, soothingly. 'The child you carry is special. You'll see soon enough.'

:::

**Present time**

She finds out from Stefan, who hears it from Rebekah, that the child is a werewolf. Of course, Caroline thinks, as her heart breaks quietly. Both of his parents were werewolves. Even Klaus started out life that way and, well, you can't be born a vampire, can you.

Klaus has named the boy Lukas. It seems a small name for such an important child.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed this. Please leave a review if you have time! I need some inspiration and feedback to decide where this is going next! xxx**


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors note: Thank you for every single review this story has received so far. Some people are enraged, some people are in love... I just hope you all keep reading and, of course, reviewing!**

**Disclaimer: Not my characters, I just love this show (these shows..?) and this fandom. **

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Caroline's kind of surprised when Hayley turns up in her Amsterdam hotel apartment. For starters, no-one except her mom and Elena know what country Caroline's in, let alone where she is staying. For seconds, Hayley is dead.

'What are you doing, Caroline?' Hayley asks, eyes all freakishly large and sad looking.

'At the moment? Reading this book,' Caroline replies. Hayley may be a ghost or whatever, but she's still Hayley and Caroline will never not be irritated by the sound of her voice.

Hayley rolls her eyes and her ghost self crosses the room, plonking down on the barrel chair next to the loveseat where Caroline is curled up.

'I mean, why aren't you with Lukas?'

Something with sharp and ragged edges churns inside Caroline and she counts to ten to try and hang onto the calm, not-dying-inside facade she's perfected these past weeks.

'Really?' she retorts, tightly. 'God, Hayley. Maybe because he's your son, not mine, and he's nothing to do with me?' There go those jagged edges again, piercing, piercing.

'Of course he is,' Hayley frowns, her voice expressing enough emotional turmoil to bring Caroline up short. 'You carried him inside you—Caroline, you nourished him and gave him life.'

'Not my choice,' Caroline says firmly, rising to her feet. 'I know what happened to you wasn't fair, but—'

'Is this because of Klaus and me?' Hayley asks, interrupting Caroline and throwing her off track. The blonde girl looks at her askance, horrified she has brought the subject up.

'What? I don't give a crap about you and Klaus bumping uglies,' Caroline huffs, willing the lie not to ring hollow in her words. 'Get over yourself Hayley.'

Seriously, is she actually arguing with a ghost? How much more strange and screwed up can this situation get? Even halfway across the world Caroline apparently can't escape this fucking mess.

Hayley gives her a sympathetic look that makes Caroline want to yank her trashy ghost hair out of her scalp.

'Look,' Hayley attempts to explain. 'I don't pretend to understand Klaus, or know what he feels for you. I can tell you one thing though—that night, back in Mystic Falls, meant nothing to either of us. I get that you're hurt, for whatever reason—'

'Really, _please_ stop talking,' Caroline cuts in, cringing.

'—but I swear to you the only good or meaningful thing to happen that night is that we made Lukas. Caroline, you can't abandon him. He's just a baby and he's going to need you so much.' The brunette's eyes shine with unshed tears and Caroline can feel the raw hurt in her words. After months of suppressing her own pain and turmoil, the last thing she wants is to deal with the wolf girl's ghostly unfinished business.

'I'm sorry,' Caroline says, voice icy. 'That child has Klaus and Rebekah and Elijah to look after him—pretty much the most powerful beings in the world. He'll be fine.' Well, physically, she self-edits. 'He's not my problem.'

'What do you mean?' Hayley says, shaking her head in disbelief.

'Exactly that—not my concern,' Caroline explains, exasperated. 'I don't really get why I have to explain this to you of all people. You were his _actual _mom. I may have been forced to be the incubator but that doesn't make me your go-to replacement, ok? Jeez. No matter how much I might have wished for it to be otherwise, six months of sitting around stroking my belly and having cravings for freaking anchovy pancakes doesn't suddenly make that baby mine.' Huffing, she turns away from Hayley with a hand to her face, hoping to shield evidence of the tears she can feel pricking at her eyeballs. She hadn't meant to say that to Hayley—hell, she hadn't spoken those feelings out loud to _anyone _before this moment.

'Caroline,' Hayley says cautiously, moving towards her. 'You know that isn't true, right?'

The vampire peers at her, around her hands, wondering what the hell Hayley is talking about.

'Oh god,' Hayley whispers, as she realises the truth. 'You _don't _know, do you? You really don't. He didn't tell you.'

'Tell me what?' Caroline asks, flatly.

'Jeez, that bastard,' Hayley mutters. 'Guess I shouldn't be surprised.'

'Tell me what?' Caroline raises her voice slightly this time.

'The baby,' Hayley says. 'The spell that the witches cast, it called upon the Spirits to protect the child. They were manipulated into it, though. The Spirits wanted the coven to cast such a powerful spell in order to allow them to influence events. Caroline, they're the reason Lukas was conceived—they found the "loophole" in nature that allowed a thousand year old vampire who'd recently accessed his werewolf side to father a child. They used me as the conduit because I was a convenient living body for him to knock up—Klaus is more likely to drain a human girl than shag her and they couldn't use a vampire. Then they sacrificed me so that Lukas could be protected by you, when the coven's ancestral magic could channel enough power for the spell.'

Caroline reels with this unexpected deluge of information. Is Hayley saying that Klaus knew this the whole time? They'd lived in the same city, seeing each other on an almost daily basis, for nearly six months and he hadn't thought to mention he had all this knowledge about the magical craptastic pregnancy from hell?

'Lukas is as much your son as he is mine,' Hayley says, looking less than one hundred percent thrilled with the situation. 'That's how he was deliberately created: part werewolf, part vampire, part human and, now, empowered with the magic of the Spirits. He's going to be the most powerful little boy in existence, Caroline, and part of him was made from you. Please help him. You can't let them hurt him.'

'If he's as powerful as all that,' Caroline wonders, dazed in the light of Hayley's confusing and painful declaration, 'then who could hurt him?'

'Silas.' Hayley says, locking eyes with Caroline. 'He—' Breaking off, she glances over her shoulder, looking at something out of Caroline's realm of vision, and when she glances back she speaks hurriedly. 'Go to Klaus, please Caroline. Please. Lukas's life may depend on you and Klaus getting your shit together and protecting him. I don't know if I can come back again. Tell him—' She reaches out suddenly and grasps at Caroline's hand. It doesn't connect, as such, but Caroline can kind of feel her touch on a different, ethereal level. 'Tell him I love him,' Hayley says, eyes bright, smiling at Caroline.

Then she's gone, and Caroline isn't sure which way is up anymore.

:::

**Six months ago**

'Get it out of her,' Klaus snarls at the witch he currently has pinned to the wall by her throat. He thinks it's one of Sophie-Ann's cousins, but he's not sure because he didn't really check before picking up the nearest one on his way into the decrepit old crypt where the coven has convened this evening.

'Klaus, please put her down,' Agnes says, as she appears next to him. Her mouth is pursed in disapproval and all Klaus can think about is that he would rip the spine straight out of her body if he didn't need them to reverse whatever they have done to Caroline first.

'I'll put her down when you get that _thing_ out of Caroline's body,' Klaus says, in that clipped, terrifyingly angry tone that almost makes him seem on the verge of cheerful. The tone that means he barely has his shit together and it's all up for grabs because he could do anything at any moment. Kiss you or kill you. In the case of the witches, it's not likely to be kiss. 'Or better yet,' Klaus muses, 'I could slowly drain the life out of her while the rest of you get started helping Caroline. If she's not fixed by the time I've finished my dinner, I'll move on to one of your other little mates.'

The girl is beginning to turn a nasty shade of oxygen-deprived under his iron grip, but Klaus keeps squeezing for a moment longer before releasing her with a dramatic flourish. The witch falls to the ground at his feet, bruised and gasping for breath. Klaus smirks at the frightened faces around the room and levels a truly nasty glare at Agnes, since she seems to be the voice of the coven.

'So, hop to it then sweetheart,' he says, coldly. Without so much as glancing down, he boots the injured witch in the stomach—just to drive his point home. They will undo what has been done to Caroline, or he will destroy them without prejudice. In no righteous world should he be spawning a child, much less torturing Caroline with the evidence of his indiscretion and the taunting reminder of what she, as a vampire, can never have. It's wrong, even by Klaus's standards. He hates being manipulated and he hates being backed into a corner. Even more than that, he hates how much he dislikes seeing Caroline is such distress.

Fury rises in Agnes's countenance, but to give the witch her due she stays calm. That's no mean feat in the face of a pissed off Klaus.

'You have some nerve, Hybrid,' Agnes says, bravely meeting Klaus's angry gaze. 'You tear through the world for a millennium—taking what you want, from whomever you want—and think that nothing can touch you. You kill and hurt and destroy whatever you touch, yet are arrogant to believe there are no consequences to your actions. That you answer to no-one.'

'How dare you,' Klaus scoffs, coldly. 'I answer to no insipid, meddlesome Witch Spirits.'

Agnes appears unimpressed.

'If you really want to understand what is happening to Caroline and why, I suggest you follow me,' she tells him.

Agnes leads Klaus into a chamber far back in the depths of the crypt. It reeks of stale incense and the air is strangely heavy. Klaus can feel the power in the room; the weight of supernatural presence is impressive, even to a being of Klaus's experiences.

'Ask the Spirits yourself,' Agnes says to Klaus. 'As much as you may threaten and hurt my coven, the spell we have cast cannot be undone. The child is in the hands of the Spirits now. Bargain with them, if you must, but do not be surprised if you don't like what you hear.'

:::

'You reap what you sow, Hybrid,' is the first thing the Spirits say to him.

The whirling, swirling, kaleidoscope of shadows had started almost as soon as Agnes stepped out of the chamber, leaving Klaus far from alone. Klaus can only assume they are doing it to disorientate and piss him off, so he grits his teeth and waits it out. Soon enough, the Spirits speak; their many voices coming together in an ugly-beautiful cacophony that seeps inside Klaus's skin, imprinting words on his bones.

It's bloody irritating. All in all, he's not a fan.

'Fine,' he challenges them, 'I'm the big bad and you think I deserve my comeuppance. What about Caroline, though? She's the very essence of all that is pure and good. The girl would probably risk her own life to save a bloody puppy.' He glances around, trying to lock onto one of the moving, unstable shapes long enough to see what they are. 'Christ, what about Hayley? Where's your moral bloody high ground when you snap your fingers and she falls down dead.'

'Her death concerns you?' The Spirits ask. He rolls his eyes at what they chose to take from his whole outburst.

'Not really,' he admits, because he gives even less of a flying monkey what the Spirits think of him than he gave about Hayley's existence. He hadn't hated her or anything. Didn't really even think much about her at all really until she was all pregnant and in his face, loitering inconveniently when Klaus was trying to get his head around everything, including how he was going to tell Caroline. 'Just pointing out your hypocrisy. I might be an evil dick, but at least I'm upfront about it,' Klaus sneers.

'Then we will be upfront about your current situation,' the Spirit voices half whisper/ half chant at him. It grates in his ears and sounds like music at the same time. 'You think we are the Spirits Ancestors of this coven, Hybrid, but you are mistaken. You feel our power. It speaks to your blackened soul.'

Klaus cannot disagree. The room pulses with ancient energy to match and even exceed his own. He hasn't felt such potent magic since the night his mother turned he and his siblings into blood-drinking immortal monsters, over a thousand years previously.

'We are the Spirit Guardians of Nature Herself,' the Voices ring out. 'We were here long before your kind, Niklaus Mikaelson, and we do not fear you. We intervene only when the balance of nature, the tentative marriage of light and darkness, is threatened, as it is now. Hybrid, you intercede on behalf of Caroline and yourself. What you do not see is that We neither enjoy nor flinch from causing suffering—We will do what is just and what must be done to restore the balance.'

'What the bloody hell are you talking about?' Klaus snarls, getting a bad feeling about this.

'You, Hayley and even Caroline helped the Bennett witch establish an Expression triangle—the most powerful form of the dark magics. Because of you, a great evil walks this Earth again. Silas will yet rain down destruction enough to irrevocably alter the balance of nature in this world and there is none, not even you, Hybrid, who can put him down. This is what you have been instrumental in causing, all of you. Through deceit and murder—through placing selfish love and desires, fears and ego, above the greater good.'

'So, what?' Klaus lashes out, stashing this information to think about later when he isn't surrounded by swirling Spirit shadows. Of all the people he has killed in his time, is this about twelve dead hybrids? Of all the people Caroline _hasn't _killed, is this about her one mistake borne of love for her friend? 'This is vengeance, then?'

'This is your atonement,' the Voices say, without hesitation.'This child—your child, Niklaus— is the only hope to defeat Silas and restore the balance of Nature. The child will be stronger than you have ever seen in your time on Earth. The power of his mother's sacrifice along with the strength of her werewolf lineage; the blood of the Original vampires and it's father's affinity to the darkness; Caroline's humanity and the light that bonds it to her: to all of this we will add our own gift—this child will be our Heir and possess great magic.'

'I don't understand,' Klaus says, faltering under the weight of such a monumental revelation.

'Hayley has atoned by giving her life for this special child,' say the Spirits. 'You, in your temper and violence, would have destroyed her and your unborn baby and along with them this world's hope to defeat Silas would have died. Caroline atones by giving now, in a different way, her life for the protection of this baby. She is part of the child now. Her trials have just begun.'

'And me?' Klaus demands, his top lip curling into a defiant sneer. 'How have you decided I should atone for my sins?'

'You will love your child,' comes the Voices reply. 'You will love him and yet, when he has righted the wrong you have done, you will be unable to save him.'

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**Hi- ok, so please be gentle with your reviews. I absolutely love that this fic is getting such passionate responses, but it's a little scary sometimes and I just hope some of the, um, strong views are at the characters rather than at me for writing them this way! **

**Massive thank you and credit to the lovely Livingdeadblondequeen, who has been so supportive of this story and come up with some great plot suggestions, a couple of which I have used massively in this chapter and will thread throughout the remainder of the fic. Especially the idea of Caroline's atonement for killing the 12 witches and for bouncing ideas around about how/if the baby might be physically linked to Caroline. So much inspiration! :) xxx**


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